Generations of classic English recipes are the basis for the all-natural ingredients in the June Loves English Cakes and Baked Goods line of sweet treats.

Yorkshire, England native June Lawton, the woman behind the June Loves English Cakes and Baked Goods pies, cakes, and flapjacks, uses virtually the same family recipes that her mother and grandmother used to make the sweet creations when she was a young girl. “Everything is very fresh and pure. I grew up in old fashioned England. When you wanted a potato, you went out into the garden and dug one up,” said Lawton.

Her grandfather, and then her father, owned a pub in Harpham, the small village where she lived before she moved to the United States in 1969. The pub, St. Quintin’s Arms, still exists, though it’s no longer owned by her family.

Lawton, an emergency room nurse at Rhode Island Hospital, carries on the tradition of using only fresh, pure ingredients in her cakes and baked goods. The chocolate raspberry cake’s frosting is made with fresh raspberries and then she drizzles it with a fresh raspberry syrup. The coffee brandy cake is made with coffee brandy, not an extract, and the same for the whiskey cake. Fresh fruits are the basis for her coconut lime cake, the banana cake with homemade caramel sauce, and her personal favorites, super-moist orange or lemon cakes topped with a sugary crunch.

The cakes and pies are sold in a 4-inch personal sized variety (her version of a cupcake) and 7-inch. “I don’t like to do what everybody else does. I think people get bored with the same thing. I always try to do something a little bit different,” she said of the four-inch cakes that are as decorated and tasty as their larger versions.

Her pies and tarts, including a lemon curd topped with Cory’s Kitchen raspberry jam, are made in the English tradition using butter in the crust, instead of shortening. One of her most popular is the Bakewell tart, a classic English treat found in bakeries throughout England known for its spongy almond filling and a thin layer of raspberry jam.

But her most popular items by far, she said, are the flapjacks, which bear absolutely no resemblance to pancakes, as they are known as in this country. The English version of a flapjack, more of what would be known here as a homemade granola bar, is made simply with four ingredients: oats, butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup, which she orders from England. Lawton started out making a couple different varieties, including chocolate-covered, and with almonds and cranberries. As the demand grows, she said she keeps inventing new varieties. “Flapjacks date back to the 17th century. You can always find them in bakeries in England,” she said.

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Lawton started making cakes and baked goods to sell at farmers’ markets about five years ago with her son, Nishon. The June Loves English Cakes and Baked Goods products, which are baked at the commercial kitchen at Sandywoods, have become so popular that they’ve evolved into a family business with Nishon and his wife, Stefani, helping out in various aspects.

The Lawtons sell the treats at a regular rotation of farmers’ markets including the Thursday afternoon farmers’ market at Sandywoods, Saturdays at Mount Hope Farm in Bristol, R.I., and Wednesdays on Memorial Boulevard in Newport, R.I. Summer visitors to those three destinations, especially Newport, have evolved into a mail order business for the cakes and baked goods from people who have tried them while on vacation. Lawton said she has one customer from New York who ordered her cakes for a recent event, despite the myriad of choices of bakeries in New York City.

“That’s one of the best things about this — I meet such lovely people from all over the country,” she added.

The cakes are also sold at Clement’s Market in Portsmouth. For more information, visit the